


A Rose Blooms

by hungrytiger



Series: A Rose Bloomed [9]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, Team, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-11
Updated: 2012-07-11
Packaged: 2017-11-09 15:40:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hungrytiger/pseuds/hungrytiger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting yellow roses signified the ending of an affair or relationship. They also meant friendship. The irony was not lost on Ino, who knew what Uchiha Sasuke had done. Team Ten gen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Rose Blooms

Somewhere, in the city, a girl who was once her friend was probably crying, and further than this city, a boy who had tried to kill her friends, who were his own friends also, was running. People had nearly died. A mission had failed. A thirteen-year-old boy was a chuunin for reasons no one saw fit to explain. Another thirteen-year-old boy was in the hospital, breathing out of tubes.

 

And now one of the many people starring in the tradgey her mind had been playing ove and over for the last thirteen hours was here, right in front of her. She didn’t move though, didn’t even look up. Her fingers played with the bush’s leaves, sandpaper under her hand. She’d gotten the bush when Sakura had ended their friendship. Getting yellow roses meant the ending of an affair or a relationship, but Ino knew they could also mean friendship. It was one of those peculiar double-meanings flowers often had. She should probably find Sakura, offer her comfort, force it on her if need be, but Ino didn’t move. Couldn’t even find room in her heart to regret that lack of compassion. She wondered vaguely if Chouji would like a clipping of this rosebush. He was also her friend. The symbolism is a little skewed, sine Chouji had never been anything like so complicated within her heart. He had always been simple, sweet Chouji, in so many ways still the little boy who the school bullies had once teased. She sighed. Still, the important thing was it would remind him she cared, and she made a note to bring him a plant in the morning. Now, though, was the time to deal with the boy in front of her. The one who had left her behind, who had let her friend get hurt-

 

The one who was looking hollowed out, and tired, and grim.

 

Shikamaru slunk in between the narrow rows of flowers, and lay down in an aisle, in spite of both the cold cement and the dampness. He often did this whenever in her father’s greenhouse. That way he could look up at the sky even then, though he claimed the glass’ imperfections warped the view. Looking down at him, it suddenly struck her it had been a long time since he or Chouji had been in the greenhouse. Shikamaru’s frame took up most of the aisle, and she had to squish in-between the workbench’s legs and his side. It wasn’t until he’d finally shifted to the side a little that she even fit, and even then she awkwardly had to lean her head up onto his shoulder in order to lie down. The sun was brilliant through the glass, glaring down on them. Long shadows- from either the flowers above or her friend’s moody attitude- swayed overhead. Squished in this closely, she was acutely aware of his heartbeat hammering through his chest, and of how much bigger he suddenly was than her. He was now easily a head taller than she, when six months ago they had seen eye to eye. Combined with the memory of the mission her teammates had went on without her, she felt oddly small, oddly frail, in comparison. With effort, she pushed those feelings aside and, looking for something to do, spoke.

 

“Shikamaru,” she questioned, and the humidity of the greenhouse swallowed her already-quiet voice. He grunted in response, and she rolled her eyes.  He  better know how lucky he was they were in too-tight of quarters for her to whack him. Trust a lazy-ass to think an answer too much trouble to bother with. She wanted to know how Chouji really was; they weren’t allowing non-mission related visitors till next day. She wanted to know how he was too, if he would tell her. But for once there were no words. Above them, and above the glass, the clouds drifted by. Watching them, for now, was enough.

 

“I wonder why he did it,” he finally managed. She felt the words through his chest more than hear them. “Naruto was his friend. I sorta thought Sakura-san was too. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t leave, and I couldn’t do what he did to a friend.”

 

She thought of Naruto and Sasuke, of Sakura and her, of Shikamaru and Chouji, and of Shikamaru and herself. She thought of hearing breathing beside her, and of the rosebush sitting somewhere on the bench above.  She thought of her Haie-tai that she wore around her waist and of a ribbon she kept in a drawer. She thought of Deer-chan, and trusting a person enough to commend her body to them, for the duration of a fight at least, and she thought of what her family knew about the mind and of how little she understood the human heart. There was no answer to the question Shikamaru asked.

 

“The clouds are easier to understand,” she muttered dryly and her head was jarred a little when he laughed. A smile curved on her own face. For now, it was good, it was enough, to be so closely wound up against another person, a friend, and to know another friend was so close in both your thoughts, he was practically in the room. It was enough to know, that right at that moment, none of the three of you could ever understand what Uchiha Sasuke had done. Somewhere a girl was crying, and somewhere a boy was running. Somewhere else, in a room, there was no noise but breathing through a tube. And somewhere, quite close, in a room, this room, right next to her ear, a heart was beating as above a rose bloomed. 

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, we've come to the story the series was named after and the very first one I wrote!


End file.
